ABSTRACT
Abstract: Firms are increasingly leveraging their globally distributed knowledge resources through the deployment of structurally diverse distributed teams. Because face-to-face meetings are becoming less common among distributed teams, team members are more frequently sharing their knowledge through the use of “virtual workspaces”—an integrated set of tools that offer a variety of communication support capabilities including a common team repository organized for easy search and retrieval, application sharing, electronic whiteboards, and group discussion forums. Despite this increased use, there is much we do not understand about how to effectively use these virtual workspaces. Using an organizational memory information system framework, we propose that teams that use their virtual workspace technologies to provide functions of what we call a “dynamic team memory system” will report higher levels of knowledge sharing effectiveness. We suggest, however, that this relationship is mediated by increases in perceived task analyzability. A test of this model on a sample of 54 structurally diverse distributed teams supports our hypotheses.
